African Tech Roundup Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Why Is South Africa Looking To Regulate Services Like WhatsApp? Jan 18, 2016

Show notes

African lawmakers are struggling to come to grips with the opportunities and threats presented by various important innovations being spurred by technological advancement— this as they carry out the unenviable task of safeguarding public welfare. In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku discuss some of the more troublesome regulatory issues that are cropping up in countries like South Africa, Kenya and even Morocco— where VoIP apps have recently been banned unless they operate under telecommunications licenses. Also in this week’s show, a snippet from a conversation Andile Masuku had with Rohan George— a Nigerian-born, South African Art Director who is now based in Mexico. Find out what Rohan considers to be invaluable to helping empower youth in the developing world to solve some of the most critical problems facing society. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Netflix & Buffering (featuring Emeka Okoye and Aaron Fu) Jan 10, 2016

Show notes

We’re just loving this trend of brilliant Africans crashing our podcast recordings. The last time that happened we had a total blast with Rebecca Enonchong, Mark Kaigwa and Thebe Ikalafeng. This week, Nigerian software engineering heavyweight, Emeka Okoye, literally walked into the room as Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku were chatting about about how Africa seemed to be responding to Netflix’s surprise roll-out of its service to pretty much every corner of the planet. Be sure to listen in to hear him share his thoughts on the impact (or lack thereof) that Neflix’s entry into the Nigerian video-on-demand market is likely to have. Then, in place of our regular discussion segment this week, we’ll be sharing an interesting chat Andile had with Aaron Fu, Managing Partner (Africa) at NEST— recorded when he and Tefo hung out with him during his first proper visit to Johannesburg recently. They talked about everything from what he’s personally looking forward to in 2016 to what strikes his fancy in his professional capacity as the head of a leading VC firm on the continent. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Musa Kalenga & Kali Ilunga Get You, Digital Africans, Pumped Up For 2016 Jan 04, 2016

Show notes

Happy New Year! The African Tech Round-up team is only one week away from being back on strike to bring you the most important digital, tech and innovation news from across the African continent. This week though, we round off our coverage of the Annual Round-up 2015 with two awesome keynote addresses. The first is one is entitled, “Where To From Here” presented by Musa Kalenga who is Africa Client Partner at Facebook, as well as Head of Brand, IAB (SA). And the second talk entitled, “Digital African: Your Ides Matter” is presented by Founder & CEO of SeeSayDo, Kali Ilunga. (Apologies for the poor sound quality in the first half of Musa’s talk.) We couldn’t think of a better way to ring in the New Year. After all, the only thing better than a single dose of inspiration is two. Digital Africans, charge! Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Craig Wilson, Kojo Baffoe and Jade Brennan Talk Gadgets & Apps Trends In Africa For 2015 Dec 28, 2015

Show notes

We let you in on a panel discussion from the Annual Round-up 2015 that covered some of the past year’s highlights from from a gadgets and apps perspective. Andile Masuku leads this laid-back conversation with Deputy Editor of Stuff Magazine and Technology Analyst, Craig Wilson, Director of Project Fable, Kojo Baffoe and Digital Content Specialist at Caxton Magazines and Contributor at TechGirl.co.za, Jade Brennan. While we talked about everything from wearables to virtual reality— highlighting what tickled our fancy in 2015, we did eventually have to come to terms with what we, as African tech enthusiasts and early adopters, ought to care about far more than we currently do. After all, TIA. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Andrew Taylor & Mich Atagana Discuss 2015 Tech Startup Trends For Africa Dec 20, 2015

Show notes

In the second instalment of our four-part Annual Round-up 2015 insights series, we bring you a panel discussion on African startups featuring Google South Africa’s Head of Communications & Public Affairs, Mich Atagana and Entrepreneur Magazine Columnist & Co-Founder of LexNove, Andrew Taylor. Mich has had the unique privilege of not only covering the birth, progress, and often, the demise of many startups on the continent, but also working for some as well. Her current role at Google gives her a unique vantage point— given how the company is arguably one of the world’s biggest and most successful startups ever, and is privy to tons of rich data. Meanwhile, as a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, and as a legal partner to many emerging small and medium-sized businesses in South Africa, Andrew operates at the coalface of the continent’s tech startup scene, and is well-placed to reflect on what kind of a year 2015 has turned out to be. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Dominique Collett-Antolik & Brandon Doyle Talk 2015 African Fintech & Telecoms Trends Dec 13, 2015

Show notes

Over the next four weeks the we are taking a much-needed break. Cue peaceful ocean sounds But we’ve made sure that over the next four weeks, in place of our regular programming, we’ll be sharing exclusive content from the Annual Round-up 2015 event we hosted at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg on November 26th 2015. The Event was powered by the good people at Opera Africa, who are totally all about helping us “do more” (on the web). This week, we kick things off by sharing a stimulating panel discussion around tech in enterprise facilitated by Tefo Mohapi— featuring Senior Investment Executive, RMI Holdings and former co-founder of the hugely successful fintech startup Tyme, Dominique Collett-Antolik and CEO & Founding Partner, Convergence Partners, Brandon Doyle. Another great reason to listen in is to find out if you’re one of the two lucky people who’ve won a Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer in last week’s competition, sponsored by Google. This week, we kick things off by sharing a stimulating panel discussion around tech in enterprise facilitated by Tefo Mohapi— featuring Senior Investment Executive, RMI Holdings and former co-founder of the hugely successful fintech startup Tyme, Dominique Collett-Antolik and CEO & Founding Partner, Convergence Partners, Brandon Doyle. Another great reason to listen in is to find out if you’re one of the two lucky people who’ve won a Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer in last week’s competition, sponsored by Google. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Mbwana Alliy Talks About Startup Governance & Funding Tech Startups In Africa Dec 07, 2015

Show notes

We attended Afrikoin Johannesburg on 3 December 2015. At the event, Andile Masuku posed a question that led to a very lively debate about whether improved “access” to seamless, more affordable financial services does in fact equal “inclusion” for Africa’s poorest— especially given how centralised the world’s computing power is, and how huge stashes of Bitcoin are held by a relatively few well-resourced interests. We also caught up with Savannah Fund founder, Mbwana Alliy for a chat after the event. In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-Up (the last full-length episode of 2015), you can not only look forward to listening to Andile and Tefo's impromptu chat with Mbwana in its entirety (including him sharing his thoughts on the Angani debacle), but you can also look forward to hearing two leading Zimbabwean startup founders explain why Zimbabwe might be the perfect use-case for disruptive fintech innovations. Then heads up, folks! For the next four weeks starting next week, in place of our regular podcast programming we’ll be sharing exclusive content from the Annual Round-up 2015 event we hosted at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg 2 weeks ago. We’ll kick things off next week by sharing a conversation we had with Senior Investment Executive, RMI Holdings, Dominique Collett-Antolik and CEO & Founding Partner, Convergence Partners, Brandon Doyle around tech in enterprise. Don’t miss it! Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Safaricom Becomes The Latest Mobile Service Provider To Be Sued Nov 29, 2015

Show notes

We're still buzzing from the great time we had at the Annual Round-up 2015, that Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku hosted at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg last week. Many thanks to those of you who made it out on Thursday morning, and a big thank you to our incredibly generous and insightful guest panelists and speakers. Also, big up to our event partners, Opera Africa, Stuff magazine, and iAfrikan.com. It was an chilled morning of intelligent, retrospective conversations-- which took stock of the state of Africa’s tech scene. The programme featured three keynote talks and three lively interactive panel discussions covering enterprise, startups and gadgets and apps. The good news is that we’ll be sharing the conversations we had at the Annual Round-up in place of the African Tech Round-up podcast starting on Monday, December 14th— to hold you down till the show returns in mid-January 2016. There’ll also be plenty of cool extras we’ll be sharing exclusively on our Soundcloud account and via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, so do follow us, do. In the meantime, enjoy Episode 33 of the African Tech Round-up. And listen in to find out why two Kenyan mobile money service providers are suing Safaricom. This is definitely on trend. The last quarter of 2015 is proving to be quite trying time for Africa’s mobile operators. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The Angani Saga Sets Silicon Savannah Ablaze Nov 23, 2015

Show notes

Kenya’s tech scene aka Silicon Savannah is on fire! At least, that’s according to commentators like Brenda Wambui, who’s recent blog posted on Medium threw serious shade the way of some looming figures in Kenya’s tech ecosystem following the diabolical fallout at cloud services firm, Angani. It turns out that some of the details surrounding this story that we reported on some weeks ago— details whose validity we later questioned, might in fact be accurate. In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku analyse the state of investor-founder relations at Angani in the light of Brenda’s candid piece, which clearly defends the honour of the company’s founders. We’ll also try to determine whether the allegations of corruption and abuse of power she levelled at the company’s investors are justified. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The Mark Kaigwa, Thebe Ikalafeng & Rebecca Enonchong Episode Nov 16, 2015

Show notes

This week's instalment of the African Tech Round-up was recorded at the African Media Leaders Forum, which wrapped in Johannesburg on the weekend. And what a treat it is! The show is an all-Africa affair— what with Mark Kaigwa stopping by. Mark is easily one of Kenya’s leading proponents of social media, as well as a respected innovator within digital tech in general. He is also the Founder and CEO of the Nairobi-based digital agency, Nendo Ventures— well-known for the Nendo Social Media Trend Report. You can look forward to hearing his insider’s take on several of the week’s biggest stories. *tv informercial voice* But that’s not all… Cameroonian tech entrepreneur, Rebecca Enonchong, and South African business, branding and marketing legend, Thebe Ikalafeng, both make unexpected guest features on this week’s episode-- Rebecca sharing some strong views on whether she thinks the MTN will actually pay the $5.2 billion fine levied by the Nigerian Communications Commission, and Thebe dropping some wisdom around what Africa’s “new breed” of techies need to do to attain global relevance. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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